Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-03-16
LIVING IN ENGLAND.
Absence Of All Conveniences for
Doing House Work.
Tea the Universal Panacea for All Evils
Where Housekeepers Arc still In
Dark Ages-An American View
of English House-Life.
ICor. Boston Transcript !

lCor. Boston Transcript
Twelve miles out OF London, on the
North Kent loop-line branch of the South
eastern railway, lies a town, which, to
avoid personalities, we will designate as
Eldon. It's inhabitants are largely of the
class described as ''plain bourgeois" being
mostly London men of business. The
houses are built OF brick and are mostly of
diDgy cream color. Their architecture is
severely simple. 10 ''gau6y abodes' Of
fend the eye. The windows are guiltless
of outside blinds, and, therefore, no con-
trasting color mars the universal cream.
Inside the inevitable Venetian blind ap-
pears, clumsy and ugly, and below it the
equally inevitable half-curtain of lace or
muslin.
The upper windows are graced by the
white-pine back of dressing-case, which,
for some reason known only to the British
mind, is always placed there. The only
redeeming feature of these houses is the
profusion of flowers by which they are
surrounded. Well is Kent called the gar
cen of England, for surely nowhere else
sbounds such wealth Of verdure and
obtained only by careful culture there
grow wild on every hand.
From the front doorway OF each house
q neatly-kept walk extends to the gate,
bordered on either side by strip of vel
vety lawn broken by circular beds of flow
ers, the whole incloscd by the regulation
hawthorn hedge. In front of this hodge,
between il and the pavement" as an En-
glish sidewalk is called, stands 'paling"
or fence of rough, unpainted boards,
worm-eaten, weather-beaten and decayed
such a fence as an American mechanic
would blush to sec inciosing his backyard
1,,4; &c
q London business man.
Having for several weeks enjoyed the
privilege of obtaining ''board and resi-
dence'' in one of these Eldon houses, we
became tolerably familiar with the inhab-
itants and their mode of living. AS re-
cards conveniences in the way of doing
the necessary work of house England is
still in the dark ages. The worst thing,
perhaps. is the 'kitchener,n sort of range
which any American housekeeper would
annihilate after one trial. 1t is made of
iron, and built into the shallow fireplace,
from which it does not project at all A
tiny fire-box, with an open CRATE in the
front that can not be closed, sends out an
intense heat over a space about foot
square, and diffuses a mild warmth over
the rest. The hot-water tank is square
box inside the "kitchener," on the left of
the fire-box, and the oven occupies SINH
lar position on the right
There are no pipes to convey the water
to any other part of the house, the only
means of obtaining it being through a
faucet projecting from the front of the
"l1itchener." The latter is provided with
several lids, but the one over the fre-box
is the only one where sufficient heat tc
boil water can be had.
There are no screens for doors or win
access The latter are an unendu urable
pest. They are everywhere in countless
lnyriads. Before dressing in the morning
it is necessary to carefully inspect each
article of clothing or run the risk OF
several sharp nips from the earwigs' for
midable forceps. The regular English
breakfast consists Of tea, bacon, fish, cake
aid marnalade.
Lunch is nondescript sort of meal, and
not so often heard of as the fashionable
five o'clock tea Tea in England is the
universal panacea for all evils, from the
loss OF ones appetite to that of ones best
beloved. 1t is offered everywhere with
nauseating frequency and persistence
To refuse it is disgraceful.
At five O'Clock in all well-regulated fam
lies it is dispensed by the mistress of the
house, accompanied by thin slices of bread
and butter. Rich-loolling fruit-cake, OF
''!1ike," as the English call it, is also offer
cd, and we admired it greatly until we
tasted it and discovered that mutton drip
ping had been substituted for butter in its
composition.
One is never expected to butter his own
bread in England. The loaf is placed or
the table, and the host, after asking if the
guest will take butter, and receiving an
affirmative reply, carefully buffers the
face of the loaf and then cuts of the slice
The bread is never placed on the table in
slices except at five o'clock tea, and it is
already buttered.
The principal business of the English
from five to ten o'clock is eating It savors
( of coarseness to our more refined Ameri
can idea, but it is perhaps necessary te
make up for the lack of any nourishine
food in the earlier part of the day.
Az dinner the piece de resistance was
usually the far-famed 'roast beef Of Old
England" which, to our unsophisticatec
Yankee taste, wonid be much improved
BY a little seasoning. The table is abun
dant in its way, an1 will satisfy hunger il
one is not oyerpdrticular about such little
refnements as napkins, butterplates anC
side dishes. The vegetables are not numer
Gus, and we soon learned that it really die
not mattcr mich If one plate was made t,
do duty for all our cltaDleS. To be suro
toe spcar1niHt which was always bcilec
with the peas, rather took the taste out o
the caulihower: but, then, the beef gravy
with which our plate WAS all a1oat, wen
long way toward making up for the tota
absence of butter IN the beans. Englisl
people never mash their potatoes, but Gu
OF each inouthful so there is less DANCE
Of upsetting the conglomcration.
We were shy at first Of the white string
on our beef, but soon discovered that the
were not, as we feared, fragments of tn
cooks apron, but bits of shredded horse
radish. The grating process is evidcntl
unknown in Britain. We often had CT
cumbers also. We knew they were CT
crlmbers, because they had in no wa
changed their shape or color since leavin
their native vines. Their glossy gree
ccat was still On, and we hesitated at frs
when they were passed &C US in this uufs
miliar state. But the treatment was sin
pie, after all. We had only to take up tn
little silver knife which was offered wit
them, cut of an inch or two, carefully ri
move the rind, and then slice the rcmainde
onto our plate, if we could find room TO d
60. We never felt the absence OF indiviC
ual butter-plates at dinner, because n
butter ever appears on an English Dime
table We should have liked salt shaker
as we found it difficult to conform to th
custom of dipping each mouthful Of foo
into the little heap Of salt on the edge {
the plate.
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N.